


As the Sun goes down

by Messier42



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Idiots in Love, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:01:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25205158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Messier42/pseuds/Messier42
Summary: The Doctor and Rose, post saving-the-day celebrations. No real plot, just fluff and a lot of flirting between our two favourite idiots in love.
Relationships: Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler
Comments: 7
Kudos: 33





	As the Sun goes down

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Slightly different update this week; I’m still working on Reflections but I’ve had this one-shot ready for a while now. Just a little bit of (hopefully) soul-soothing fluff.

The Doctor giggled. 

Funny, Rose thought. The Doctor doesn’t usually giggle. Maybe the odd high-pitch “ha!” but otherwise normal laughter. And what she’d just said wasn’t particularly funny, at least she didn’t think so. 

He didn’t usually hiccup either. 

“Blimey! HIC! This berry juice has gone straight to my head. What did I say — HIC! — it was again?” 

Rose frowned. Her head felt a bit funny. Squinting, she peered over to the holographic menu board. 

“Wasn’t it that... that umm... the one that you said was like a Gooseberry? Krausgogberry, that was it! It’s a Krausgogberry and Zingiberry mix. Try saying that when you’re drunk. Wait — are we drunk?” 

The Doctor scrunched up his face in concentration, causing Rose to laugh. With another hiccup, he said “there certainly wasn’t any alcohol in that drink. I can’t put my finger on it, but I think the drink is having some sort of an effect on us. Not intoxicating as such just... lowering inhibitions a bit.”

Rose bit her lip. “What, like you might suddenly strip off and run across the bar naked or something?”

The Doctor snorted and hiccuped at the same time. “Sounds like that one’s coming from experience — not sure I want to know. And no, I probably won’t resort to that, but good to know it’s the first thing you thought of me doing.” He winked, and Rose blushed. 

She hurried to move the conversation on. “Keisha and Shareen used to get up to all sorts when we went out. One time they actually did go skinny dipping in a fountain at like 4 in the morning. It was summer, so it was just getting light already, and the water wasn’t too cold. Micky turned up to walk us home and got a proper eyeful! And before you say anything, I was just paddling.” 

The Doctor hiccupped again. “Oh I’m sure. Well, we are right by the beach so if you get the urge...” 

Rose gave him a playful punch on the arm. “Shut up! I’m not gonna strip off just cos I’m a bit accidentally sloshed on berry juice.” She put on what her mum would call her posh customer service voice. “I’m a distinguished time and space travelling professional now.”

The held each other’s gazes for a moment, before simultaneously doubling over with laughter. 

“Come on”, the Doctor said, throwing a few pieces of the local currency down on the table. “We’ve probably had enough we-saved-the-day celebratory berry juice now.” He held out his hand to her, wiggling his fingers. “Let’s go find a spot to watch the sunset.”

Rose grinned. “You’re such a romantic! Wait, before we head off, chug a glass of water — it might help with the hiccups.”

The water did not help with the hiccups, and the Doctor gleefully hiccuped his way down to the beach with Rose in tow. Along the way, she tried to help with the ways her mum always told her to use, in between him telling her everything he knew about hiccups. 

“Do you have a paper bag in those endless pockets of yours? If you do, try breathing in and out from it.” Rose suggested. The Doctor dug around in them for a while, before triumphantly pulling one out. 

“Jelly baby?” he offered, and when Rose shook her head he tipped the remaining contents of the bag straight into his mouth. 

In response Rose wrinkled her nose, saying “as well as the berry stuff, I’ve got to watch out for you getting a sugar rush too? Honestly, you’re worse than my cousins I used to have to baby sit.”

The Doctor made a noise of protest, but was otherwise silenced by the bag around his mouth. He managed a few breaths before hiccuping again. One more failed attempt later, and he’d given up. “Useless! Next?” 

“I think pulling on your tongue could help? That is, if you stopped talking for long enough” she suggested. The Doctor turned around abruptly to give her a look, sticking his tongue out pointedly. He grabbed it with his free hand, and then to Rose’s amusement turned around and started walking and talking again. 

“Weawly ips fummy aww bees hiccup curebs. They bombt — HIC!” He let go of his tongue. “As I was saying, really it’s funny that there’s all these supposed hiccup cures. When none of them really seem — HIC! — to work.”

Rose pretended to be affronted. “Hey, don’t knock it until you try it! Do the holding your breath one now, long as you can.”

“We might be here a while then — respiratory bypass, remember? I can hold my breath for ages”, he replied. 

“Well, looks like you’re gonna have to shut up for a while then. I can enjoy the view in peace and quiet!” she said in a sing-song voice. 

“What, the view of the sunset or the behind of the gorgeous — HIC! — hunk of alien you’re currently following on the path down to the beach?” he teased. 

“Oooh, move out the way then! Sightseeing the universe includes all the fit blokes we come across. Is he in front of you? It’s just, your massive ego’s blocking the way.” She laughed at his resulting pout and patted his arm. “You’re very lovely too. Now shut up and hold your breath.” 

They traversed the rest of the way down the beach path in blissful (thought Rose) silence. It was just wide enough for them to walk single file, a purple dirt path snaking through the long red grass. Ahead of them, the black sands of the beach stretched as far as the eye could see, and out to the turquoise green waters. The deep red sun was low in the sky, its light rays seemingly dancing on the flickering surface of the sea. 

The Doctor — ever the gentleman — spread out his coat for them to sit on. The air was starting to catch a chill, and the cold-blooded locals would have already headed home for the night, giving them the beach to themselves. Rose used the chill to justify in her head why she scooted up to him much closer than she usually would. 

“HIC! Well, go on then” the Doctor finally spoke up. 

“Go on what?” She’d been happy gazing out to sea, thoughtfulness occasionally punctuated by a small hiccup from the Doctor.

“Next hiccup cure! I’m sure Jackie must have had dozens up her sleeve for you.” he explained. 

“Oh umm, the only other one I can think of is a shock. But I can’t tell you that I’m about to do it, can I? Then it wouldn’t be a shock.” Truth be told, she’d stopped thinking about hiccups a while back as her mind wandered. 

“Hmm, that’s fair. Well, in the meantime, have a look out over in that direction”, he said, pointing his finger out over the sea with another hiccup. 

“Where?” She leaned even closer into him so that she could replicate his eye-line. “That star that’s coming out? Must be bright for us to already see it.” 

“Yeah. Except it’s not a star, it’s a very small  
moon. If we stayed here a few hours as it got dark you’d see it moving relative to the stars. Your Moon is actually pretty large as moons go. Take your Solar System for example. There are some giant moons around Jupiter and Saturn — in fact their two biggest moons, Ganymede and Titan, are both larger than the planet Mercury.” He paused to hiccup, and to allow Rose to process what he just said. He continued “Jupiter’s got a couple more big ones, but what’s so special about the Moon is that it’s so big compared to Earth. Usually a planet’s moon will just appear as a speck in the sky, like this one rising here. Plus, even though the Moon is 400x smaller than the Sun in diameter, in your time it’s 400x closer to the Earth than the Sun is. It’s a beautiful, amazing coincidence. That’s why they’re about the same size in the sky, and total solar eclipses look like they do.” 

“Huh, that’s cool. You make it all sound so interesting. If only we’d done that in science rather than endless circuits and suvat, I might have actually paid more attention. Wish I’d done better in my GCSEs now, ‘specially since I never did my A-Levels.” Rose sounded wistful. The Doctor hiccupped, and she continued. It was a lot easier to talk about these things when you could stare off into the distance at a beautiful alien sunset, rather than face-to-face. The berry juice was probably helping as well. 

“There just didn’t seem to be any point in it, you know? Get your Cs in English and Maths, maybe manage a B in Business Studies that you’re never gonna use because let’s face it, you’re always going to be working for someone else, if you even can find work at all. No point learning French or German if you’re never going to be able to afford a holiday abroad. They say History is useful because knowledge of the past helps you to make decisions in the present — but how many of us off the Estate would ever make it into politics? They don’t let working class kids in, maybe a lucky few of the brainy ones that managed to get a uni scholarship. Geography too — are there even any oxbow lakes in South London? And I doubt you can see longshore drift in Southend. It’s not like we could afford to take the train very often, or have a car. Micky only managed to have old bangers because he’s a mechanic and could fix up the supposed lost causes that they got in. I dunno, I’m one of the lucky ones who had an out — at first I thought it would be through Jimmy, which is hilarious in hindsight. Do you remember Mum’s old school friend Marge, the one in Norwich with the Forzell? She only went up in the world by marrying rich, and of course it turned her into a snooty cow too. But I do sometimes wonder what I’d be doing if you hadn’t shown up in my life.” 

She finally turned to face the Doctor, only to see his face scrunched up and bright red. “Doctor! Oh my God, what’s wrong?” 

At that, he let off quite possibly the loudest hiccup Rose had ever heard. “Sorry, didn’t want to ruin the moment,” he finally managed to get out, spluttering. 

“You numpty, I was only rattling on about my GCSEs. Hardly important stuff. I half expected you to have tuned out and be solving equations in your head or something. You know, more important things.” She trailed off into a mumble, suddenly feeling embarrassed, looking back out to sea. The sun had crept lower in the sky, and was just touching the horizon. “Just that stupid berry juice causing me to prattle on, sorry.” 

She was startled when the Doctor slipped his hand into hers. “No no no I like hearing about your life! And in the grand scheme of things, GCSEs and A-Levels and letters printed on fancy pieces of paper don’t matter. Yeah they’re probably important at the time for you to go onto the next thing, but 5, 10 years down the line? You’ve gained so much more knowledge just from living your life. And you, Rose Tyler —“ he paused, and gave her hand a quick squeeze, and she turned her face back to him again “— you’ve lived more than most already. You’re brilliant! And just think about how even more amazing you’re gonna be after a few more years of travelling! You’re going to be unstoppable — ooof!”

Rose had flung herself onto him, wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her face into his chest.

“Well, I think that’s the shock I was after, so fingers crossed that works” said the Doctor, his attempted grumble being softened by his affectionate tone. 

“I don’t really understand why you have so much faith in me,” she mumbled, “but I appreciate it all the same.” 

“Says the woman who single-handedly defeated an entire Dalek fleet amongst saving the day countless other times,” he said softly. “You really don’t give yourself enough credit sometimes.” 

She wasn’t sure what to say to that, so she just squeezed his hand and snuggled into his side. The thought that she usually tried to tone down her affections briefly crossed her mind, but she decided that she didn’t care. For all the Doctor could be stuffy sometimes, mostly holding her at arms length for whatever his high and mighty reasons, he was a really good pillow. Mates could snuggle up for warmth on the beach while watching a sunset, right? Nothing wrong with that. The Doctor would let her know if she ever overstepped a line. 

They watched the sun go down and the stars come out in companionable silence. Not that she would admit it to the Doctor, but these were Rose’s favourite moments. Oh, the rush of seeing a new sky and the thrill of an adventure were great too, but this? Just sitting together, quietly enjoying the lapping of the waves on the shore and the flapping of the giant alien birds going to roost. Those were the moments she cherished the most. Despite them still dancing around exactly who they were to each other, she felt more secure with the Doctor than anyone else. 

She must’ve dozed off, because the next thing she knew it was completely dark and a fair bit colder. As she stirred, she looked upwards to see the Doctor’s starlit face gazing down fondly at her. 

“Welcome back sleepyhead”, he said softly, helping her brush a few stray ends of her hair out of her eyes. “Saving the day finally caught up to you, hmm?” 

She yawned. “Must’ve done. Sorry, I trapped you under me, you must’ve been bored. How long was I out?” 

“Only about 30 minutes,” he replied, “and it’s okay. I was enjoying the view.” 

She couldn’t help but blush as the Doctor left it purposefully ambiguous as to whether he was referring to the seascape, or the sleepy human practically on top of him. He did that infuriatingly often, and Rose supposed it was by design. 

“Well, I’m freezin’ now and if I stay sat still then my legs are gonna go dead. Back to the TARDIS?” she suggested. 

“Back to the TARDIS”, he confirmed, as he sprang up and offered his hand out to her. “Hot chocolates all round when we’re back to warm up? Extra whipped cream and marshmallows?” 

“Ooooh yes please”, Rose practically groaned, as he helped pull her up. “You do know how to spoil a girl.” 

Picking up his coat and wrapping it around her shoulders, he said “nah, only the best ones. Did I ever tell you the story about how I accidentally proposed to someone with a cup of cocoa? Long time ago now. Oooh, I should take you to visit the Aztecs. Maybe after we’ve had the hot chocolate though to avoid any more misunderstandings.” 

Rose snorted. “I can believe that. Maybe you’re not such a romantic after all.”

“Depends if I like the person or not”, he responded. “Always happy to take feedback if you’re not satisfied. Come on!” 

Rose stared at him in disbelief for a moment. “You could start by not being the King of mixed signals”, she muttered under her breath, before hurrying to catch up with him. 

“Hiccups have gone then?”, she asked him when she got there. 

“Yup!” He replied gleefully. “It was the shock of you barrelling into me that finally sorted them out, so thanks. Seems like the berry juice has worn off too. Extra sugar in my hot choccie is definitely in order!”

“You’re mad” Rose laughed. 

“Yeeeah, but you love it” the Doctor teased, bumping her with his shoulder. 

“No complaints from me” she replied softly, as they simultaneously reached out to grab the other’s hand, and give it a quick squeeze. Hand in hand, they walked back to the TARDIS through the tall dark grass, ready for whatever their next adventure had in store for them.


End file.
